Worktop installation in St Paul's Cray

Yes. St Paul's Cray is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR5. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A drying balcony opened off the kitchen originally and many have since been glazed in, which turns an external wall into an internal one with the old threshold still in it. The carry is the constraint. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see.

The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The void ends whether we have finished or not.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Nothing bears on plasterboard. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Owner or agent, somebody has to be reachable.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A fob on the communal door and a shared lift mean the carry is timed rather than continuous. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Every unit gets a level on it before a piece lands.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The piece is offered up, marked, taken back out and cut, and that cycle can run twice before anything is bonded down. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.